To Take them Dancing
by flossie1
Summary: The scariest thing? That the memory that I once had a child would be forgotten and life would simply go on without the pain...I would rather keep the memory. Oneparter, romancetragedy


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To Take Them Dancing

Flossie

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Summary- But it's the truth, and right now, it seems like the only thing I can tell you that isn't a lie. 

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Disclaimer- I own everything besides the characters, and the show etc. Please ask if you'd like to use any of this.

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Author's note- I've taken a massive break from writing, basically, anything at all. So this is sort of the breaker of it all. I haven't had much time and there has been a lot of personal things going on. I really love writing Gilmore Girls fanfiction so I've decided to do a one-parter. I love to get feedback, as always. I've been experimenting with little things in my writing, and I know I must have left a lot of descriptions and sort that I love going on about. I didn't realise it until the middle as I was writing this, that I had chosen an extremely sensitive and mature issue- so I apologise for that.

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You know that dream, where you're walking down a stair, or a ledge, or elevator- and suddenly you slip and fall? Its all dark and black and you have that strange feeling that your dropping? And that's when you wake up suddenly, sweating and panting. 

Reminding yourself that it was only a dream and willing your brain to accept it and fall back asleep?

Yeah? 

Well I can't seem to wake up. 

I mean, I know that sounds insane and crazy and, oh, a million other things. But it's the truth. And right now, it seems like the only thing that I can tell you that isn't a lie.

My son was born in April; I don't remember the exact date. I do remember watching him afterwards, through the cool glass. I remember picking away at the paint at the window pane, using my nail to dig away at the strip until it peeled away completely, until I was satisfied, and then beginning on another area. 

He was wrapped in a blue blanket, yes, I remember that. Blue for a boy, I suppose.

It was light blue, stiff and clean. Very clean, most likely scrubbed and scrubbed over; I had wondered if the blanket they used for him was a special one, only for babies like him, or was it simply another, piled from a linen press.

We never did name him. 

It seems so cruel now, thinking about it. When other parents were celebrating and smothering their child, aunties coo-ing and relatives buying extravagant cards with storks, I was sitting in a hospital bed working out whether my lunch was macaroni cheese or egg salad. 

When other parents were already in love with their children, I hadn't held mine.

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"I've got a surprise for you."

"That's what you always say! I always guess right, remember?"

He stopped halfway up the steps, pouting; he pulled off a glove and rubbed his cold hand over her face, tweaking her nose before taking their place over her eyes.

"Hey come on! Don't! I'll slip over a step and take you with me!"

He chuckled, "Hmmm…" he considered, "If I got hurt, would you make me feel better?" 

She snorted loudly, but didn't take his hands from her eyes.

"Will I like this surprise?"

He didn't answer, opening the door he guided her along the passage, reaching for her hand he squeezed it gently, 

"Now, open your eyes now Rory."

The walls were a light yellow. Isn't that funny? When you describe a room you always begin with the colours. I suppose it starts off your idea of what it all looks like. You have a blank room, and when you put colour in there suddenly everything changes. 

So. It was a yellow room, light pink in the corners with blue carpet. 

I had laughed then, noticing how he had managed to incorporate every baby colour into the room without it looking like a rainbow. I had lied then, it had looked like a rainbow; it was the most magnificent place I had ever been in. The windows were open, letting the new curtains dance and flutter about; there was a painting, up there next to the windows. At first I hadn't noticed it, but when he pointed it out to me I had laughed. 

A teddy he had won for me so many years ago, Edward, took his place in the corner upon a white rocking chair, looking smug and important. The dresser and cot we had chosen were there also. 

Everything was new and clean and wonderful. 

It occurred to me that day how much I wished he would never leave me.

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"Ah! Eddie just can't stay out of anything can he?" her laugh was clear and genuine. She danced about the room in a trance, noticing little things she loved and twirling about on her toes. 

He leaned against the bear and watched her, every new second his heart beating faster, watching her round belly as she floated about. She was beautiful, a princess.

The princess came to rest on top of him. He let out a gasp and tried to manoeuvre her weight from his buckling legs, Eddie was cast aside. 

"Oh come on! I'm not that heavy!" her voice rang out, grinning widely as she scooped her hands around his neck.

"No…" he wheezed, "You're as light as a feather." 

The Princess kissed his cheek and studied her husband. He had done it all, for her. 

Shivering, she watched as he touched her belly under her thin t-shirt, tickling and drawing patterns against her skin. 

"What do you think it is?"

A whisper.

He lent back into the chair as she cuddled into him, rocking gently.

"I think…" he kissed her head and sighed, "Do you know what? I think that I don't care. I think that I'm the luckiest man to ever love you, and I think, I think everything you give me is perfect."

"I love you."

I remember the day he told me he was going away. I was waking up when he slipped out of our room. I had sat up and noticed that the suitcase, the shiny black one with the wheels was out, that all of his clothes were strewn out across the floor and that there was no smell of coffee coming from the kitchen. 

I had jumped out of bed so suddenly I wished I had not.

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"Tristan? Where are you?"

Her voice echoed, "Tristan?"

He gave her a shock as he opened the bathroom door behind her, his mouth frothed with toothpaste and a towel wrapped around his waist. She held her hand to her chest suddenly.

"Rory? What are you doing up?" he sounded fake and adjusted, worried. His eyes darted around the room anxiously.

She frowned a little, "You woke me up this morning with the packing." 

"Oh, oh god Rory…" he spat into the sink quickly and embraced her, softly, kissing her cheek, his eyes turned down to her stomach, "Five months now," he smiled;

"One week." They spoke in unison.

"Two days." Rory whispered, pulling away from him, "You're going, aren't you? It's work again?"

"Yes, it's work." He turned away, picking up an un-ironed shirt from the bench. 

"You'll be back in time for…" she shook her head, "Tristan, you will be back in time?"

"I'll be back in four weeks baby, only a month, okay? Baby?" he reached for her hand and he pulled it towards him, "I'll be back, I promise." 

She searched his eyes for anything to tell her otherwise. She needn't bother. Every time she looked at him she knew how much he loved her. It still hurt; it still hurt a lot.

I had gone into labour a week or so later. I had been talking to Tristan and had just finished a litre bottle of chocolate milk when I got the first contractions. I don't remember what I had said to Tristan before I dropped the phone; ten minutes later, lying out on the tiles nursing my back, it occurred to me that he had called an ambulance from his hotel.

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"How many weeks into five months are you sweetie?"

An hour ago Rory would have been able to tell the nurse the exact time she had been pregnant, from conception to the day. She couldn't now.

"Sweetie? We need to know? Are you past your twenty-fourth week?"

Her face crumpled, "No... No, I don't think…"

They had told me they had gotten a hold of Tristan and that he was on a plane. I remember wondering if he really was on a plane, if the nurses had just lied to me to make me feel better. If they felt sorry for me. 

I remember hating him for making me go through it all by myself.

I remember wishing, pleading with whoever would listen, to bring him to me. 

Four hours after I had given birth I was sitting up in my bed trying to decide what I had been give for lunch. It didn't matter anyhow, I don't think I could have eaten anything. I could hear fussing and loud voices outside in the hallway for a while, until Tristan came exploding into the room. 

It was funny, I hadn't cried until I saw his face.

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He stood at the end of the bed, with a look of, what was it…. pity, sadness…regret. 

She looked so small and alone sitting in the middle of the sheets, dressed in a blue paper nightgown and her arms by her sides. She couldn't look up from her plate.

"They, they did tell you, what happened…"

He didn't answer straight away, "Yes. A, a lady at the desk." His voice broke at the end as he stepped over to her side and took her up in his arms.

"Are you disappointed in me?"

It was then when she began to cry. Long tears dragged across her cheeks. He held her as she wept into his arms, screaming at the world, beating his back with her fists and digging her hands into his shoulders. 

In the end she gave up, she was tired, physically exhausted from her tears. 

Emotionally drained. 

She'd had enough.

He slept next to my bed that night; half on the plastic chair and half sprawled out across my body.

I remember waking up in the night sweating and feeling around for the lump in my stomach. 

The next morning we went together to see him. We didn't talk much, I wasn't sure if Tristan wanted to or not, all I knew was that If I did it would break some kind of spell. 

Tristan went in to see the doctor. He came out, his cheeks stained with tears, smiling at me sadly.

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"The ba- he, he's really premature Ror…" 

They were sitting next to a machine, selling chips or soft drink, she was leaning upon it for support, his hand going unnoticed, gripping her fingers. 

"That's, that's what the, the um, nurse told me," she swallowed, "He's on a life machine isn't he? That's what that big thing was? The cords?"

"Yes…he's so tiny-"

"He's beautiful-"

He leant towards her face and cupped her cheeks tenderly into his hands, staring into her eyes desperately; "He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen Ror. And we'll fight for him." 

I had held him, held his little body, as if he were about to break any moment. As if he was a play-doll, I remember having to hand him to Tristan before I broke down onto the floor, screaming into my hands and tearing at my hair. 

You could feel his precious heart against the sole of your thumb, beating so quickly. His body was trembling slightly, holding his tiny fingers up to his face and squeezing his eyes shut. Opening his mouth to cry but never making a sound.

It scared me how easily I fell in love with him, it occurred to me that this must be how a normal mother feels when they look at their child. Then I remembered that I wasn't a normal mother.

Above everything, the most horrible, cruel thing was that I could not let the negative thoughts away from my head. That he would never come home with us, never meet his grandparents or got to school. His bedroom, the one so tenderly made by his daddy; with the baby toys and the cot with the bear pattern. The picture upon his wall of the Hartford University Crest would be forgotten. 

That perhaps one day, we would wake up and forget all about him. The memory that I once had a child would be forgotten and life would simply go on without the pain.

I couldn't handle that, this life, this baby deserved everything; he deserved the world.

I would rather have the pain and the memory than none at all. 

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End file.
